This message from a special fan landed in my public profile Facebook inbox this morning. I won’t include his name, as he would probably enjoy that too much.
You are a dickhead. You fk’n leso feminist. I bloody hate u bitch. You always have something to say. I bet you think “Playgirl” with pictures of men in porn magazines is all okay but when it’s women, it’s taboo as far as you are concerned. You have obviously had a very sheltered life. I would guess that I am not the only one who hates you. It is fair enough if women’s heads are photoshopped onto models bodies but when women SEND IN THEIR OWN PICTURES, it’s because they want to show off their bodies. They are not made or forced to do so. You have a very shallow mind bitch
It’s just one of many along these lines which come to me regularly. My friends all get them too, mostly through social media. We often compare them at the end of the day to see who got the ‘best’ one. I used to be the winner most days but now a couple of my mates are in the lead, especially those who have taken it up to the Lingerie Football League. All in a day’s work.
But it was good, just after reading the latest love letter, to come across this commentary by Van Badham on Women’s Agenda (a site I’ve only just discovered and which ran this really good piece about women and appearance). Here’s an extract but it’s worth reading the whole thing:
Whether it’s deliberate or non-self-aware, Brospherism is passive-aggressive sexism that foments social awkwardness and inflicts personal damage, because it masquerades as the instruction of colleagues whilst relying upon same old, same old sexist traditions of dismissing women’s agency and enforcing gendered standards of behaviour. You know you’re up against the Brosphere when you encounter subtly gendered language to dismiss the (unheard) sound of written women’s voices as “yelling”, “shrieking” or “shouting about nothing”. Call out this or any other kind of discursive marginalization in an online forum and you risk invoking the wrath of Brospherus Maximus, a pack-attack of mutually reinforced conclusions that the feminist doesn’t know what sexism is, that she is “over-reacting”, “over-sensitive”, “crazy”. The gender-doom of denunciation as “hysterical” is only ever one connotation away, the words “calm down” or “settle” apparently inevitable, while substantive content of whatever comment made by a woman displeased the original Bro is ignored in favour of a defensive schooling in how feminists who criticize sexist behaviour just can’t, um, engage criticism. Read more here.
See also: ‘Opposed to Lingerie Football? You must be fat and ugly’, Caitlin Roper, MTR blog, November 20, 2013
‘Why I’m calling on twitter to stop abuse’, Talitha Stone, MTR, Daily Life, August 7, 2013
‘Tax office admits it gave unacceptable response to MTR complaint re sexist tweet’, MTR, June 14, 2013
2 Responses
Love it. Its amazing if the asian population was getting paid less, portrayed negatively in the media and was discriminated against in the they way women are – there would be an outcry. But because its institutionalised to discriminate against women and girls its accepted. I remember getting into a robust discussion with a man in his 30s who looked up and down at my then 13yo daughter and asked her for her phone number whilst we were waiting for a pizza.??? Why do some men think thats acceptable?
Men are doing our work for us by constantly proving they do hate and/or hold women in contempt because our sex is female.
All these men utter the same sexualised insults because they are incapable of engaging in a debate. However, these men know that by constantly uttering their women-hating insults and threatening to subject women to sexual violence this is the most effective way of oppressing and silencing women. There is a name for these mens’ behaviour and that is enactment of male power.
All these men are enacting what they believe is their sacrosanct right to subject women and girls to degrading insults and/or their right to view all women and girls as ‘disposable mens’ sexual service stations.’
But these male initiated degrading insults and threats of male violence will not silence all women – because there will always be some women prepared to hold these violent women-hating males to account.
One wonders how these boys manage to get through each and every day given they are constantly engaged in hysterical claims against women. Or perhaps these women-hating males know that the women who are holding them and their bros. to account are threatening their pseudo male right to view/treat women and girls as dehumanised objects and men hate even the idea of their male right to oppress women and girls finally being eliminated.